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Smashing Drive
Smashing Drive is a racing video game developed and published by Gaelco and distributed by Namco. The game was first released in arcades in 2000 and was ported to the Nintendo Gamecube and Xbox in 2002 by Point of View and Namco. Subsequently, it has been brought to the Game Boy Advance in 2004 by DSI Games and Namco. Gameplay The player races against time and another psychotic cab driver through New York City to earn money. The game is divided into four difficulties, each of which contains three different levels (with the exception of "Dusk and Wired", which only contains one). If the player manages to beat the rival cab in all three levels of a difficulty, they are taken to a bonus stage with the only available route being all of the Risky Routes. At the end of a stage, the player's score is based on the amount of time it took to reach the destination, the cab's condition, the rival being beaten, the number of Turbo powerups obtained, and the number of Risky Routes traversed. Unlike many racing games, the horn actually has a functional use of making (most) mobile vehicles move aside. If the player runs out of time before completing the stage, they encounter a continue screen. A 10-second countdown will be then given to the player if they wish to try again. After it expires, the game is over. However, on the console version's Head-to-Head mode, there is no continue feature. After time runs out, the game automatically ends. Difficulty (Tracks) Levels * Early Bird Shift (Easy) ** Brooklyn ** Wall Street ** Little Italy * Rush Hour Shift (Normal) ** Brooklyn Navy Yard ** Music City Hall ** West Central Park * Night Owl Shift (Hard) ** Sea and Air Museum ** 5th Ave. to 34th St. ** Times Square * Dusk & Wired Shift (Reward) ** Statue of Liberty Power-Ups * Cutter - Cuts through long vehicles such as limos and other tough stuff. * Big-Foot/4x4 - Gives the cab big wheels that can allow the player to drive over other vehicles(excluding the rival cab). * Turbo - Gives the cab some speed and can be useful to help the player beat the rival. * Bonus - Gives the player extra money after beating the rival. * Time - Gives the player extra time. * Glider - Gives the player some wings to fly for a short amount of time depending on how big the jump is. * Repair - Fixes the cab. * Sonic - A super horn that literally blows the cars away. * Crash - A very useful power-up that gives the car a shield that protects the player's cab as it crashes through other vehicles without damaging the cab. * ? - A wild card power-up that gives a random power-up. Levels Early Bird The taxi cab first picks up a camera man and must take him to Brooklyn. The cab takes a shortcut through the airport and could take another shortcut through a big sewer pipe. Or can take a shortcut through a construction site. Next, the cab must take a business man to Wall Street, the cab could jump on ramps onto the top railings of the Brooklyn Bridge and take a jump shortcut over a passenger ferry at the docks. The cab can also take a shortcut through a mall to get to the business man's destination faster. Next, the taxi picks up a woman and her little dog and must take them to Little Italy. The cab could take a shortcut between two buildings (using the cutters to slice through the pipes in that shortcut), and also can take another shortcut through a building on fire while fire trucks are putting the fire out. The cab can also use a fire escape as a ramp. Rush Hour The cab picks up a man and his bodyguard and must take them to Brooklyn Navy Yard. The cab can take a shortcut through a grocery store and through a construction yard while the construction vehicles are at work, and also jump off a broken side of a bridge that was caused by a crashed truck and land onto a barge. The taxi next picks up the camera man again and has to take him to the Music City Hall. The cab could jump off a ramp using the cutters to slice through a train on a train bridge it goes over, and take a shortcut through an industrial area pipe. It cab could also take a shortcut through a sewer system and over the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink (and could bounce off the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree to collect a line of power ups), and through a building that leads to the camera man's second destination. Next, the taxi picks up the business man again and must take him to West Central Park. Using the turbo boost, the cab could take a turbo boosting shortcut over a building or just go through it, running over people's desks. The cab could also jump over a ramp taking a shortcut through the top floor of a church. The cab takes a shortcut through the American Museum of Natural History to get the to the business man's second destination. Night Owl The taxi picks up a fat woman carrying groceries and has to take her to the Sea and Air Museum. The cab can take a shortcut through a parking lot to get her to her destination faster. Next, the taxi picks up the woman and her little dog again and must take them to 5th Ave-34 St. The cab could take a shortcut over the Sea and Air Museum's deck and jump over the edge of the aircraft carrier, through a helicopter and onto the roof of a building. The cab could also take a shortcut through the bus station where it will jump over the edge and collect a line of power ups, and also through a basketball stadium during the middle of a basketball game. Next, the cab picks up the man and his bodyguard again and must take them to Times Square. The cab drives around Central Park. The taxi races a giant ape (possibly King Kong) to the Empire State Building. Using the turbo and crash power ups, the cab could bash the giant ape off the Empire State Building as he climbs it and the cab enters the top of the building and goes down the elevator shaft. The cab could also take another shortcut through a movie theater driving through a theater screen. Duck and Wired The taxi picks up the camera man again and this time must take him to the Statue of Liberty. The cab could take another shortcut through another building on fire while fire trucks are putting the fire out, and could also jump over a ramp onto the roofs of buildings and take another shortcut back through the same mall it went through on the Early Bird Level. The cab always collects the 4x4 power up to use as flotations to get across the water to the Statue of Liberty, the camera man's third destination, and final passenger's destination in the game. After the cab climbs the Statue of Liberty and drops off the camera man to his third destination, the game's end credits roll. Differences between arcade and console versions * The cutscenes at the beginning and end of the stages that show fares getting into/leaving the cab have been removed in the console versions. * The powerup "Big-Foot" has been renamed to "4x4". However, the announcer still calls the powerup "Big-Foot" in the Game Boy Advance port. * New "Survival Mode" allows the cab to actually be destroyed with too much damage, ending the level. Cultural References * King Kong will be seen three times in the third and final level of Night Owl: first terrorizing the streets of NYC; second on the Empire State Building only to be hit by the player; finally seen falling down on the street Knocked out and beat up after getting run over. Problems The game is known to have a major glitch when playing Head to Head mode. Upon reaching the third level of the Early Bird difficulty, the players are faced with an unbeatable level. The Developers had mistakenly made the time limit 35 seconds instead of 45 seconds, rendering the game mode unbeatable, even for the most advanced players. Cancelled Ports A PlayStation 2 version was planned, but was canceled. Reception Reviews for this game were generally negative for the Xbox and Gamecube versions and mixed for the Game Boy Advance version. Jon Thompson of AllGame rated the arcade version three stars out of five and wrote, "The visuals of Smashing Drive are certainly decent, although they can't qualify as top-notch in this day and age." Thompson also wrote, "It isn't the most amazing racer ever made, but it has enough interesting ideas and strong enough execution to make it something different in the arcade world. It's tough, it's attractive, and overall, it's fun." Scott Alan Marriott of AllGame rated the GameCube version two stars out of five and wrote, "Namco's history of delivering feature packed arcade ports to home consoles comes crashing to a halt with Smashing Drive .... Smashing Drive was probably not an easy game to port due to so much happening on the screen, and to its credit, the game never bogs down. Unfortunately, the darn thing never speeds up either, so each race feels like it takes place underwater. The graphics are colorful but simple, lacking the detailed textures expected from a GameCube title. ... Succeeding in Smashing Drive is a simple matter of memorizing the courses, knowing where each turbo is located, and learning the best shortcuts. Once that's done, there's very little replay value." Fran Mirabella III of IGN gave the GameCube version a 3.4 rating and wrote, "The only added benefit the arcade version is multiplayer, and that also dries up speedily. Smashing Drive is a neat concept, but fails pretty miserably in execution. It's just far too linear to offer up any compelling gameplay. There are no permanent upgrades for your cab, no cars to unlock, and only one final bonus destination to surprise you." Mairabella called the soundtrack, "Definitely one of the most god-awful soundtracks ever created. The collection of about four or five songs is downright nauseating. ... We've asked ourselves if anyone could actually like this music. Even the composer -- dare we call them that -- would have to be somewhat crazed to think he/she created something anyone would want to listen to." Mirabella also criticized the game's outdated graphics, and concluded that "after about a half-hour or so I had nearly beaten the game and found most of the shortcuts. It's an arcade game port. It's not a title I feel is made for the home console market." Aaron Boulding of IGN gave the Xbox version a 3.3 rating out of 10 and criticized it for not taking advantage of the console's graphical capability. Boulding also criticized the game's animation, writing, "When you do see pedestrians scurrying out of the way, they look like tiny flat action figures waddling to safety." Boulding also said the game included the, "Worst soundtrack ever", calling it "pure synthesized, acid-washed crap." Boulding also wrote, "The crashes and other sound effects aren't very effective and the attempt at surround sound is laughable." Gerald Villoria of GameSpot rated the GameCube and Xbox versions a 3.5 rating out of 10. Villoria criticized the GameCube version's graphics and generic sound effects, and wrote that "the worst culprit is the game's music, which is just as disappointing as the game's short life span. There are three grungy garage rock songs in total, and all three are of absolutely abysmal production value. A single song loops every 30 seconds or so for each level--listening to the same horrible song over and over again for 20 minutes will practically be enough to drive you mad." Villoria also said "few players will get more than a couple of hours' worth of enjoyment out of the home version." Villoria said the Xbox version "essentially shares all the failings displayed in the GameCube port". Frank Provo of GameSpot rated the Game Boy Advance version a 6.1 and said that "for a variety of reasons, it doesn't seem like such a bad game" in comparison to the GameCube and Xbox versions, despite duplicating the same "look and feel". Provo said, "Nothing about the music or sound effects is particularly noteworthy .... And while the vocal lyrics within the game's music clips are unique, they're not exactly spicy or memorable." Provo concluded that it "isn't a great racing game, and it certainly won't eat up weeks of your time, but it is fine for what it is: a simple, graphically impressive racer that can be played in short bursts." Provo also noted in his review, "As an arcade game, Smashing Drive was something of a laughing stock. Apart from the fact that it was a restrictive knockoff of Sega's Crazy Taxi, albeit with weapons, the ancient polygon graphics looked like they were rendered on whatever home video game console was popular in 1996--which wasn't so flattering for an arcade game that was produced in 2000." Legacy Burnout Storm Smashing Drive material and details being Taxi appearance in Burnout Storm series, James Emirzian Waldementer Software Co. whose mentioned with Smashing Drive previous to game reviewed, Which was the originally being game designer and detailer of main car Taxi will appears to Taxi Challenges in various tracks location and as a opponent. The Driver Band The Driver influences of punk-rock band, Smashing Drive Soundtrack will also band songtracks performance music video, Footage from the game is including in the video Development Crew * Credited to Arcade Version * Credited to Xbox Version * Credited to Gamecube Version * Credited to Game Boy Advance External links * Smashing Drive at MobyGames